Trust-building talks on Transdnistria settlement to be held next week

The conference will take place in Germany’s Bavaria on July 12-13

Transdniestria's capital Tiraspol

CHISINAU, July 8. /TASS/. An annual conference on trust-building measures between Moldova and Transdniestria will be held in Germany’s Bavaria next week, the Moldovan government’s reintegration bureau, which supervises the negotiating process, said on Friday.

"The conference will be held in the city of Bad Reichenhall on July 12-13. The conference will involve delegations from all the parties to the Five Plus Two format [namely Moldova and Transdniestria as parties to the conflict, Russia, Ukraine and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) as mediators, and the United States and the European Union as observers]. The agenda of the conference includes discussions ad a number of panel sessions with participation of international partners who will discuss issues of education, transport, communications and other problems of mutual interest for Chisinau and Tiraspol," the bureau said.

Moldova’s and Transdniestria’s delegations will be led by their chief negotiators, namely Moldova’s Deputy Prime Minister for reintegration Gheorghe Balan and Transdniestria’s acting Foreign Minister Vitaly Ignatyev, who will be accompanied by leaders of working groups on trust building measures.

The conference on trust-building measures between Moldova and Transdniestria is annually held in Bavaria at the initiative of the German foreign ministry since 2009. The first informal meeting involving mediators and observers was held in Bad Reichenhall in southern Bavaria in 2011. Similar conferences were later held in Rottach-Egern in 2012, in Landshut in 2013, in Freising in 2014, and in Rottach-Egern in 2015. This year, Germany, which is currently holding the presidency in the OSCE, backed by other members of the Five Plus Two format has managed to resume the talks that had been frozen for almost two years.

After the first meeting in Berlin on June 2-3, the sides signed a protocol of seven provisions Chisinau and Tiraspol were to implement before the conference in Bavaria. However the sides managed to reach agreement on only one provision - last week they signed protocols on cooperation in the area of meteorology and environment protections in the Dniester basin. According to Moldova’s reintegration bureau, the date for the next round of talks in the 5+2 format and their agenda will be discussed at the conference in Bavaria.